September’s surprisingly green run – for a historically bearish month, at least – looks to be coming to an end as we move into October, though it took RBA governor Michele Bullock directly pointing out sticky inflation, apparently.
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While this has been brewing for some time Down Under, as inflation prints kept coming, it was the RBA gov’s Tuesday speech that set the ASX dipping.
Ms Bullock admitted she’ll need to “rethink” further interest rate cuts should inflation continue to surprise on the upside – and on that, ASX 200 futures have now turned towards a slight -0.1% loss heading into today.
That red sentiment as we hit the middle of Week 40 is an Australian-only vibe, too; over in the U.S., traders kept the S&P and Dow trucking as much as +0.4% higher, while U.K. investors hiked the FTSE +0.54%.
There is that looming U.S. government shutdown to worry about, of course, but Wall Street seems happy to let it start before they start panicking.
With Oz ignoring its big brother bourses, it leaves us with an interesting trading day.
And so – with the stage set, here’s Wednesday’s early company news.
ASX stocks to watch
In headline news, BHP (ASX:BHP) is likely heading for a dip today; the steelmaker major dropped in London already – it finished -1.9% lower – after Bloomberg reported China’s state-run iron ore buyer had recently told Middle Kingdom traders to “temporarily” halt buying BHP cargoes in October.
Elsewhere, some Southern Cross (ASX:SXL) investors have blasted the move to acquire Seven West Media (ASX:SWM), though most issue has been taken with the fact the purchase can go through without holders voting.
And, Macquarie Bank (ASX:MGQ) has continued to gain ground on trailing big four bank ANZ Group (ASX:ANZ) in the Australian home loan battlefield; Macquarie’s mortgage market share has been up +1% this year.
On HotCopper forums, a drilling expansion at Danvers has seen White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN) emerge as a hot watch early today.
And in ratings, Genesis (ASX:GMD) was upgraded to “accumulate.”
Buck and ore
Now – in forex, the Aussie dollar buys 66.1 U.S. cents.
Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore is up +0.5%, selling at $103.55 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is down -1.4% at $66.12/bbl,
Gold is another day stronger, today selling at up to $3,860 an ounce, and,
US natgas futures are up +2%, to $3.33 per gigajoule.
That’s HotCopper’s ASX Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre – good luck, happy trading.
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